........may have never existed


https://a.msn.com/r/2/AAvrZcm?m=en-gb&ocid=News



Dirk

Interesting list, even if some of the brief descriptions are a little misleading. Tír Na nÓg, for example, is badly explained.

I notice they omitted the most obvious one, at least at the moment - the pre-EEC Britain that many pro-Brexit voters believe they can get back to.

Quote :

I notice they omitted the most obvious one, at least at the moment - the pre-EEC Britain that many pro-Brexit voters believe they can get back to.

Ah yes - it was a magical place - green, chequered fields wreathed in mist over which the larks were forever rising, singing their little hearts out to excellent tunes by that Vaughan Williams chap. Not so many larks Up North, of course, but that didn't really matter if you lived there. Up North - one's heart swells at the thought  - the very evocation of the place hurts your heart - Up North - the M62 - where steel and wool and cotton were king(s) and various other extremely useful things were manufactured by men with  hearts of oak - goods that were went out to the four corners of the globe (do globes have corners?), a globe that was pretty much ours -  coloured red to remind us, lest we forget - which of course we didn't and don't - that Britannia Rules OK?

PS  It does take your breath away...

Temperance,

"Ah yes - it was a magical place - green, chequered fields wreathed in mist over which the larks were forever rising, singing their little hearts out to excellent tunes by that Vaughan Williams chap. Not so many larks Up North, of course, but that didn't really matter if you lived there. Up North - one's heart swells at the thought - the very evocation of the place hurts your heart - Up North - the M62 - where steel and wool and cotton were king(s) and various other extremely useful things were manufactured by men with  hearts of oak - goods that were went out to the four corners of the globe (do globes have corners?), a globe that was pretty much ours -  coloured red to remind us, lest we forget - which of course we didn't and don't - that Britannica Rules OK? "

But you don't have to underestimate that ground swell of national feelings that can have negative and positive effects. Positive as in conflicts, for instance WWII, when Britain stood alone against the Nazi threat. The whole Commonwealth coming up to support Britain also from the feeling that they were bound together and wanted to fight for it. Even today in a globalized world of brotherhood, the in my eyes (sorry (to Ferval too)) overemphasized nationhood,is still alife and kicking. Look to Catalunia, North of Italy, Flemish independentits in Belgium. It still surprises me every day...but who am I...just one droplet in the sea.
Perhaps France has the same as the Brits and to a lesser extent the Netherlands?
As for Belgium, sigh...we, that little Belgium, had that many changes in our history...first the Burgundians in the Leo Belgicus (the nowadays Benelux), then the Austrians and the Habsburgs, then the Spanish Habsburgs, the Dutch Revolt and the Southern Spanish Netherlands, then again under Austria, then the incorporation in France, the liberation by a Dutchman, who became king of the former Leo Belgicus, now the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, than split again as before in North and South, because of the Belgian Catholics and the French language Liberals...but nowadays with the football again some national feelings and pride...? The Belgian Tricolore again...

Kind regards from Paul.

Temperance,

as I said, don't underestimate national feelings...
The following youtube from your message, was this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spx4kmY67Wc
But I found a better one from Vera Lynn. And even I am moved by that song, especially as a fan of Vera Lynn. And I can understand that the British during WWII were comforted by that song in their times of distress.
https://www.amazon.com/Therell-Always-Be-an-England/dp/B0054OB9DY
Comment by a reader from this link:
"March 12, 2014
As a young boy during WWII I heard this song, which brought tears to my stiff-upper-lip British father, a naval officer fighting the war far from his native England. Years later I realized how uncertain were the early days of the War, yet the Brits held on, with Churchill's cohortation that There'll Always Be An England. Just Stay Calm and Carry On.



It is a performance in the Netherlands after the war in 1962?, but how strong it have to have been during the war...

Kind regards from Paul.

Temperance wrote:

PS  It does take your breath away...

Temperance,

thanks for this poetic music from Vaughan Williams.
Didn't know the man...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Vaughan_Williams

After this enjoying music it is nearly a sacrilege to start with down to the earth subjects as the transmigrants to Britain. As I don't remember anymore where we discussed the Brexit, I put my subject here.
We have more and more trouble with transmigrants at Zeebruges. last week they put cobblestones to the police, who was behind the fences. The dockworkers are then come to rescue...
My question to you and the other contributors: Why is it that these migrants are so eager to come over the Channel to England?
If they do it for the welfare, I have the impression that they are better off here in Belgium or in Germany (I did a study for these boards on welfare, when the granddaughter moved to Switzerland, in my eyes with a nearly American welfare)
Or do they it, because there are no indentity cards in Britain, which can be overhere on every moment of the day be controlled?
No it is behind me, what they see in Britain better than overhere....?

PS: "to the corners of the world" perhaps because we have in Dutch the word "uithoek" (remote corner, back of beyond, outpost) (hoek: corner) for that word "corner"..."tot de verste uithoeken van de wereld" (to the furthest remote corners, outposts of the world) it seems not as if the world has corners....

Kind regards from Paul.

Temperance, couldn't resist...

I know, I know - all the Land of Hope and Glory stuff seems to be just nonsense these days - embarrassing and dangerous nonsense. That's history for you. But I'm sorry, I have to admit that England - or bits of it - does remain a special place for those of us who were born here. That's why I mentioned Vaughan Williams: much of his music conjures up a green paradise that's very nearly gone. I suppose Lark Ascending links with Adlestrop - Edward Thomas's great evocation of something English and "mystical". English birds are the best in the world, of course, and sing far better than foreign birds - in fact, there's a blackbird up already in my garden - he's singing his heart out. But he's not being all mystical - just wants me to replenish the birdtable, I suppose.



Adlestrop

By Edward Thomas  



Yes. I remember Adlestrop—

The name, because one afternoon

Of heat the express-train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was late June.



The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.

No one left and no one came

On the bare platform. What I saw

Was Adlestrop—only the name



And willows, willow-herb, and grass,

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky.




And for that minute a blackbird sang

Close by, and round him, mistier,

Farther and farther, all the birds

Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Paul ;

 with ref to your :
"My question to you and the other contributors: Why is it that these migrants are so eager to come over the Channel to England?
If they do it for the welfare, I have the impression that they are better off here in Belgium or in Germany (I did a study for these boards on welfare, when the granddaughter moved to Switzerland, in my eyes with a nearly American welfare)
Or do they it, because there are no indentity cards in Britain, which can be overhere on every moment of the day be controlled?
No it is behind me, what they see in Britain better than overhere....?"


I think that most of them prefer to cross the Channel and come to the UK because they have some knowledge ( in some cases have a good knowledge )of the English language thus can get around the country.
I don't think that there are that many who can speak or make themselves understandable in the German, Scandinavian , Dutch, Spanish , Portuguese or Italian language.

Those who originate from Northern African countries may have knowledge of the French language and usually stick around in France.


An alternative is also the fact that many of those trying to get into Britain seem to have some kind of family, relations or even friends who are already in the UK and may have been living in the UK for a long time.



Dirk

Temperance wrote:

I know, I know - all the Land of Hope and Glory stuff seems to be just nonsense these days - embarrassing and dangerous nonsense. That's history for you. But I'm sorry, I have to admit that England - or bits of it - does remain a special place for those of us who were born here. That's why I mentioned Vaughan Williams: much of his music conjures up a green paradise that's very nearly gone. I suppose Lark Ascending links with Adlestrop - Edward Thomas's great evocation of something English and "mystical". English birds are the best in the world, of course, and sing far better than foreign birds - in fact, there's a blackbird up already in my garden - he's singing his heart out. But he's not being all mystical - just wants me to replenish the birdtable, I suppose.

Dear Temperance,

I think you misunderstood me. With my mentioning of "Land of Hope and Glory" I wanted to say that I just understood your patriotism as I had perhaps the same feelings as you, hearing that song and knowing of Vera Lynn and the background of WWII. And in that WWII we saw Britain, (the BBC listened to in hiding) and to a minor part the US as the "free world" and belonging to our "community" "nationhood". At least as my parents told me. It is not a matter of rationality, the mind reasoning set it in perspective, but deep in the hearth there is a perhaps irrational feeling of belonging to, perhaps inherited from the dawn of humanity...
We have now that same feeling of "our community", especially the Liberals, as a party comes up on the municipality polls wanting for separation of men and women and longing for the introduction of the sharia in Belgium. And now the Liberals and the Flemish independentists and perhaps the other parties too want to change the Constitution to avoid such circumstances. In that we seems to differ from France in the separation of Church and State as I understand it up to now.
And to come back to Vera Lynn as in the 1962 performance in the Netherlands of "Land of Hope and Glory". I am already a fan of her from my childhood with "Good bye Irene". What a voice, especially her deep voice...up to now I have never heard such a performant female voice...
And I discussed nationalism already to death on several fora, including this one. To say that I have already a grasp on the question.
And I add in an addendum to not bore you a list, as the question again comes up between Caro and nordmann in another subforum.

Kind regards from Paul.

Addendum to the previous message.

The list to support what nordmann said to Caro in another thread...
About state, nation, ethnie, nationhood
http://historum.com/general-history/124916-definition-nationalism.html
Message 136 from motorbike
http://historum.com/european-history/98962-medieval-nationalism-nationalism-not-born-early-modern-era-france-2.html
My message 20.
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t921-what-is-nationalism
The discussion between nordmann and me.

Kind regards from Paul.

Dirk Marinus wrote:

Paul ;

 with ref to your :
"My question to you and the other contributors: Why is it that these migrants are so eager to come over the Channel to England?
If they do it for the welfare, I have the impression that they are better off here in Belgium or in Germany (I did a study for these boards on welfare, when the granddaughter moved to Switzerland, in my eyes with a nearly American welfare)
Or do they it, because there are no indentity cards in Britain, which can be overhere on every moment of the day be controlled?
No it is behind me, what they see in Britain better than overhere....?"


I think that most of them prefer to cross the Channel and come to the UK because they have some knowledge ( in some cases have a good knowledge )of the English language thus can get around the country.
I don't think that there are that many who can speak or make themselves understandable in the German, Scandinavian , Dutch, Spanish , Portuguese or Italian language.

Those who originate from Northern African countries may have knowledge of the French language and usually stick around in France.


An alternative is also the fact that many of those trying to get into Britain seem to have some kind of family, relations or even friends who are already in the UK and may have been living in the UK for a long time.



Dirk

Dirk,

thank you very much for your reply. And yes you can be right about the language and the family ties.

Kind regards from Paul.

I did misunderstand you, Paul, but you had misunderstood me! There was a touch of clumsy irony in what I posted on Friday night, you know    . We need a different sort of patriotism now - not one born of a longing for a glorious resurgence of a Downton Abbey world, a world that will magically reappear in a post-Brexit English utopia, but one that comes from an attempt to build a different sort of British Empire. That's why I love the words of Jerusalem - not in a God-Squaddy way - William Blake was certainly no member of that army - but a "patriotism" based on decency and democracy and integrity, on all the old Socialist ideals that I so passionately believed in when I was young. Socialist, not communist, I hasten to add - the "old" Labour. Some would say that's trying to revisit a mystical place that never existed too - a "utopia" indeed -  but I don't believe that: many young people today have the same vision of a eu-topia (not to be confused with The Big Sheep near Bude) - yes, even the totally messed up young ones who so desperately want some kind of genuine leadership - and something good, something worthwhile, to believe in. They may appear cynical many (most) of them, but cynics are frustrated idealists after all.

A terribly muddled post - I'm still half asleep - but will still send.

Blake's words, glorious though they are, about building a New Jerusalem in England's 'green and pleasant land' were not inteded to be simply allegorical. Blake, like quite a few others of his time, firmly believed Britain was the successor of Ancient Biblical Judea and would be the site at which the elect would gather for the Second Coming. He believed the British were a unique 'master race' as they were the remnants of one of the lost tribes of Israel.

In his long and rambling poem 'Jerusalem and the Emanation of the Great Albion' (written on and off between 1804 and 1820) he had a carefully planned mental geography of Britain as the promised land with a clear agenda: Britain was great because it was chosen by God, as fate ordained. By ruling much of the world - and when he was writing the Empire was still far from at its greatest extent - Britain was doing nothing more than fulfilling prophesy. Blake, although a bit of a crackpot, was far from alone in these beliefs and the idea that Britain was Israel's successor -  and Britons, God's people - grew with the Empire. The Metropolitan Anglo-Israel Association was founded in 1878 and by the 1930s it could attract twenty thousand to its meetings, many of them wealthy landowners and industrialists, plus a large swathe of the nobility. All of them were convinced that Britons were a lost tribe, ordained by God to rule the world and convert all, including the Jews, to the true religion of Anglicanism.

As a hymn 'Jerusalem', besides its dodgy theology, is based on some murky and rather blatant tenets of racism and xenophobia. Given all the current hand-wringing about anti-semitism in the shadow cabinet it should also be noted that the choice of 'Jerusalem' as an anthem of the British Labour Party, was not a complely random matter but in part reflected these earlier ideas of Britain as God's chosen successor state to the Biblical Israel of Solomon and David.

Mmm - not so sure I agree, but I haven't got time now to think properly about your point - will come back later. But will just say that "crackpot" Blake was a heretical rebel, who was not too keen on "God the Father" at all. He identified God the Son with all spiritual goodness and, certainly in his later writings, made the old God the Father a symbol of terror and tyranny. God to Blake personified absolute authority, whereas Christ personified the human character - Blake was always on the side of man against unjust authority. To Blake all virtue is human virtue and in his most religious poems he acknowledges no other "Christianity". Dodgy theology indeed to most theologians!

The worship of God is honouring his gifts
In other men and loving the greatest men best, each according
To his Genius which is the Holy Ghost in Man; there is no other
God than that God who is the intellectual fountain of humanity.

Few "crackpots" around here have said the same, I think?

Got to go.

PS Remember Frank in "Educating Rita"? He said to Rita of Blake: "They complicate him, Rita; they complicate him."

PPS Here's a bit of Terry Eagleton: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/nov/28/comment.politics

And of course it should be noted that as an anthem, Parry's setting to music of Blake's poem, was originally done for a demonstration concert for the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and accordingly 'Jerusalem' is also an anthem of that other bastion of Britishness, the Women's Institute. (Actually I think Parry was originally asked to set it to music as a stirring patriotic theme in support of the war effort, but he was unhappy about the aggressive ultra-patriotism of Blake's words, and withdrew his support for the project after it had been written. The music might have gone into obscurity had it not been rescued by the Suffragettes and adopted by them).

Parry obviously had a lousy English teacher who never encouraged him to read beyond the obvious and to think for himself. Probably some old Victorian from Oxford...

Or maybe he (Parry) was just a compassionate, sensitive, artistic man - as well being a Germanophile - who saw the catastrophic war between Britain and Germany as sweeping away all that he held dear and had worked for ... and so thought it shouldn't be celebrated with triumphalism (although admittedly in 1916, when he wrote the piece, Britain was still very far from being triumphant). He was also an ardent and active supporter of the Suffragette movement and he may well have seen theirs as the more honourable cause ... thus, having withdrawn his support for the original 'ultra-patriotic' concert project, he then gave permission for exactly the same arrangement of his music and Blake's original words, to be used in a benefit concert by the Suffragettes. But Parry never lived to see either peace restored nor women get the vote as he died of Spanish flu' in October 1918, a month before the Armistice.

I admit my initial comments about Blake himself may well have been 'complicating' the man, although many of the concepts he seems to have been alluding to were certainly taken up and expanded, in support of their own agenda, by contemporary, and expecially later, Imperialists.

But hey, I just wanted you to have something to cogitate on during 11 o'clock service, especially if the sermon was going to be particularly boring. The Collect for today (2nd Sunday after Easter) is, "... grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth ...", all very worthy sentiments but they're fairly bland, so I do hope your vicar was able to add some Blakeian colour of his/her own.

Meles meles wrote:

Or maybe he (Parry) was just a compassionate, sensitive, artistic man - as well being a Germanophile - who saw the catastrophic war between Britain and Germany as sweeping away all that he held dear and had worked for ... and so thought it shouldn't be celebrated with triumphalism (although admittedly in 1916, when he wrote the piece, Britain was still very far from being triumphant). He was also an ardent and active supporter of the Suffragette movement and he may well have seen theirs as the more honourable cause ... thus, having withdrawn his support for the original 'ultra-patriotic' concert project, he then gave permission for exactly the same arrangement of his music and Blake's original words, to be used in a benefit concert by the Suffragettes. But Parry never lived to see either peace restored nor women get the vote as he died of Spanish flu' in October 1918, a month before the Armistice.

I admit my initial comments about Blake himself may well have been 'complicating' the man, although many of the concepts he seems to have been alluding to were certainly taken up and expanded in support of their own agenda by contemporary, and expecially later, Imperialists.

But hey, I just wanted you to have something to cogitate on during 11 o'clock service, especially if the sermon was going to be particularly boring. The Collect for today (2nd Sunday after Easter) is, "... grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth ...", all very worthy sentiments but they're fairly bland, so I do hope your vicar was able to add some Blakeian colour of his/her own.

The part of your your post I have highlighted is true I am sure; also that Parry was all you say he was: sensitive and kind and compassionate. I am relieved you added the comments about other people's "agendas". But I am cross to think that Blake's poetry could (can) be so so crassly misunderstood and misused: "bring me my spear" does not refer to bayonets and "Chariot of fire" is not a visionary reference to a British Mark 1 tank.

They don't use the old Book of Common Prayer collects anymore: we get modern words that do indeed come across as bland and pretty meaningless (if I am honest, which I do try to be). I love the stuff Cranmer wrote - he didn't do bland (except in his letters to Henry VIII when being bland was probably pretty wise) - and I bet that collect for the First Sunday after Easter was one of his. Putting away malice and wickedness is  a hard thing: not so much the wickedness, because I don't think I'm a particularly wicked person, even at my worst, but I am malicious at times, I know. That's a sad thing to admit, but you have - perhaps intentionally - given me food for thought, MM: perhaps some bitter herbs would make a good Dish of the Day - a little portion just for me, with extra rue?

Our vicar (another new one - they don't last long these days) is very nice. We had Doubting Thomas today and her sermon on him and his woolliness and lack of zeal was not boring at all, but very honest. Poor old Thomas - one of the story's great characters, a favourite of mine. I did sneak a look at your post on my phone, not during the sermon, but before: I then switched it off so it wouldn't ring out with my "scampering" ringtone as she preached. I got a stern look from an elderly parishioner who saw me conjuring up Google - a lady who thinks Smartphones are of the Devil.

Anyway, talking of scampering, I'm off to my garden: the sun is out and it's lovely and mild. Thank God the winter's over: it's been a grim one - and not just the weather.

Apologies to Dirk - we seem to have wandered a bit off the paths to his mystical no places.





"Love the spear: would you like to see my bow of burning gold?"

Oh dear!  This lowbrow lady seems to have got the wrong end of the stick...I always took the words of Blake's Jerusalem literally - as trying to save something of the English countryside as it was being built over at a rapid rate (even worse nowadays, that's a bit close to home with me as a couple of large housing estates have been built on green fields a little further up the road where I live - well the second is still in being constructed).  There's always Flanders and Swann's *Song of Patriotic Prejudice - which for anyone whose first language was not English was meant to be funny.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdY1Y5XNJBY



* Back when I was a college girl some Irish girls were singing a lot of Irish rebel songs so I sang this, just as a hoot really, and one lass said to me (my real life name is Irish sounding - blame my paternal grandfather) "I don't know how you can sing that with a name like ________".  Some folk have a sense of humour bypass I guess.

Temperance wrote:

"Love the spear: would you like to see my bow of burning gold?"

" Salut! ... How 'bout you show me your Bow of Burning Gold and I'll show you my Arrow of Desire ... if you know what I mean". [wink, wink]. "So how about, err  ... round the back of barrack hut C, just after lights out, same as last night, eh?"

"OK".


Blake's original words are certainly open to different interpretations. I wonder if anyone has ever written a Polari version of 'Jerusalem'?

Crikey, I put chariot of desire instead of fire. What was I thinking? That is a million times worse than an apostrophe mistake. I think I am rapidly losing my Mental Fight.

MM wrote:

" Ok Sweetie ... You show me your Bow of Burning gold and I'll show you my Arrow of Desire ... if know what I mean". [wink, wink].

Blake's original words are certainly open to different interpretations. I wonder if anyone has ever written a Polari version of 'Jerusalem'?

Do a Jules and Sandy version, MM - I don't know enough Polari.

LiR - I do not think there is anything remotely lowbrow about you: you are trying to lead us all up the garden path saying such a thing. Anyway, back to my own garden path now, a path that is shockingly weedy.

Incidentally, before we got bogged down in "Jerusalem" you mentioned Vaughan Williams' "Lark Ascending" as being quintisentially 'English'. When I first moved to France I have to admit that I played my "Vaughan Willams - Unorgettable Classics" CD quite a lot. But I generally skipped through the opening track, "The Lark", and moved on to the ones that to me more represented England: his "Fantasia on Greensleeves" (OK a bit cliché I admit), but then his "Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis" (always sublime) and finally his "English Folk Song Suite". This last was, along with such classics as, "Sussex by the Sea", "Men of Harlech" and "On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at", a staple of when I played in a brass band, and so perhaps it conjured up, not just Britain, but the particular Britain of my youth.

On a not unrelated note I see that Vaughan Williams' "Lark Ascending" has just been knocked off its perch after a sustained reign of several years as the UK's most popular piece of classical music (as determined by a Classic FM Radio poll)  ... to be replaced by none other than Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture". Make of that what you will.

And just by the way, à propos of nothing really ... but Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst (he of "Jupiter"/"I vow to thee my country") both studied under Hubert Parry when he was Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music.

MM wrote:

And just by the way, à propos of nothing really ... but Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst (he of "Jupiter"/"I vow to thee my country") both studied under Hubert Parry when he was Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music.

That is interesting, MM.

Am I allowed to admit to loving the words of "I Vow to thee my country" without being thought a total prat?

I know nothing about Cecil Spring-Rice who wrote the original verse:


I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;
The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

And there's another country, I've heard of long ago,
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.

The final line of the second verse is based on Proverbs 3:17, "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace" (KJV), in the context of which the feminine pronoun refers to Wisdom.

The original first verse of Spring-Rice's poem Urbs Dei/The Two Father Lands (1908–1912), never set to music, was as follows:


I heard my country calling, away across the sea,
Across the waste of waters, she calls and calls to me.
Her sword is girded at her side, her helmet on her head,
And around her feet are lying the dying and the dead;
I hear the noise of battle, the thunder of her guns;
I haste to thee, my mother, a son among thy sons.

Helmets and swords, noise of battle and the  thunder of guns no longer seemed so glorious post-1918, I suppose.

Sad and ironic that the hymn was one chosen by Lady Diana Spencer for her wedding to the Prince of Wales in 1981.

Temperance wrote:

Am I allowed to admit to loving the words of "I Vow to thee my country" without being thought a total prat?

You are indeed. We had a thread here a couple of years ago about alternative national anthems and I was, and still am, quite an advocate for "I vow to thee my country". Many I know dislike it ... Gil, here, in particular voiced his hatred of the tune and cited the dismal association of the hymn with Armistice Remembrance, both at school and in the Navy. Yet I feel that a rousing tune speaking simply about love for, and pride in, one's country - as opposed to say, Blake/Parry's, jingoistic, aggressive, patriotic chant - is infinitely preferable. That said I still acknowledge the "Marseillaise" to be a cracking good tune and a rousing National Anthem, despite its rather anachronistic references to, "watering the furrows of our fields with the impure blood of our enemies".

MM wrote:

That said I still acknowledge the "Marseillaise" to be a cracking good tune and a rousing National Anthem ... despite it's rather anachronistic references to, "watering the furrows of our fields with the impure blood of our enemies".

Do the French still sing that bit? Makes our "confound their knavish tricks" (which I believe originally referred to those pesky Celts who would not stay properly subdued by the English) sound quite reasonable. Perhaps we'll all start singing verse two again, but this time referring to the Eurocrats - if they continue being beastly to us, that is.



O Lord our God arise

Scatter her enemies

And make them fall

Confound their politics

Frustrate their knavish tricks

On Thee our hopes we fix

God save us all.

MM wrote:

Yet I feel that a rousing tune speaking simply about love for, and pride in, one's country - as opposed to say, Blake/Parry's, jingoistic, aggressive, patriotic chant - is infinitely preferable.  

 Still think you are wrong about Jerusalem. I think Blake and Spring-Rice were similar: neither writer was interested in "jingoistic, aggressive" nonsense, but in something quite different. But we agree about the beauty of I Vow, so let's leave it at that...

Meles meles wrote:

Temperance wrote:

Am I allowed to admit to loving the words of "I Vow to thee my country" without being thought a total prat?

You are indeed. We had a thread here a couple of years ago about alternative national anthems and I was, and still am, quite an advocate for "I vow to thee my country". Many I know dislike it ... Gil, here, in particular voiced his hatred of the tune and cited the dismal association of the hymn with Armistice Remembrance, both at school and in the Navy. Yet I feel that a rousing tune speaking simply about love for, and pride in, one's country - as opposed to say, Blake/Parry's, jingoistic, aggressive, patriotic chant - is infinitely preferable. That said I still acknowledge the "Marseillaise" to be a cracking good tune and a rousing National Anthem, despite its rather anachronistic references to, "watering the furrows of our fields with the impure blood of our enemies".

 
Meles meles,

"That said I still acknowledge the "Marseillaise" to be a cracking good tune and a rousing National Anthem, despite its rather anachronistic references to, "watering the furrows of our fields with the impure blood of our enemies"."


Yes all that bombastic feelings, but people don't think about the words nowadays, but listen to the music and are moved not by the words but by the moment of "samenhorigheidsgevoel" (I didn't find it in my dictionary, on the net they translate by "shared sense of belonging" which is exactly the meaning). As for instance the Marseillaise at the memory by the French president of the victims of the Bataclan (I saw it life on the TV).
About bombastic poems about the Belgian colonial period and I still learned it at school in the Fifties. And now you don't find it on the net anymore or it has to be by a senior who put the words on the net.
http://nl.bibliomania.be/item/12005727/kongo_18851960_als_een_wereld_zo_groot_waar_uw_vlag_staat_geplant
"De tijd spoedt heen en bakent reeds de laan
Waar ook nieuwere tijden ons wenken
Wij volgen fier en zullen langs de baan
Onze roemrijke vaad'ren gedenken
IS UW BODEM HIER KLEIN.
GINDS TOCH WACHT U EEN STRAND
ALS EEN WERELD ZO GROOT.
WAAR UW VLAG STAAT GEPLANT
Immer vooruit, dappere telgen
Moedig en vrij, vast, hand in hand!
God omsluite in zijn zegen der Belgen
Vorst en land!"

We follow proudly and will along the way
remember our illustrious forefathers
Is your land here small
there indeed waits for you a shore,
as a world that big,
where your flag stands planted
always ahead, brave descendants,
couregeous and free, firm, hand in hand!
may God enclose in his blessing of the Belgians
Monarch and country!

Meles meles, and that was composed I guess by G. T. Antheunis in 1870, only some twenty years after "le mythe national belge" was constructed...and now the colonial period after the independence in 1960 is completely not political correct anymore, with the statues of Leopold II besmeared with "blood" (perhaps red paint). They have even difficulties how to behave when the colonial museum of Tervueren opens again this year (or is the name "colonial" changed too?)

Kind regards from Paul.

Temperance wrote:

I did misunderstand you, Paul, but you had misunderstood me! There was a touch of clumsy irony in what I posted on Friday night, you know    . We need a different sort of patriotism now - not one born of a longing for a glorious resurgence of a Downton Abbey world, a world that will magically reappear in a post-Brexit English utopia, but one that comes from an attempt to build a different sort of British Empire. That's why I love the words of Jerusalem - not in a God-Squaddy way - William Blake was certainly no member of that army - but a "patriotism" based on decency and democracy and integrity, on all the old Socialist ideals that I so passionately believed in when I was young. Socialist, not communist, I hasten to add - the "old" Labour. Some would say that's trying to revisit a mystical place that never existed too - a "utopia" indeed -  but I don't believe that: many young people today have the same vision of a eu-topia (not to be confused with The Big Sheep near Bude) - yes, even the totally messed up young ones who so desperately want some kind of genuine leadership - and something good, something worthwhile, to believe in. They may appear cynical many (most) of them, but cynics are frustrated idealists after all.

A terribly muddled post - I'm still half asleep - but will still send.

No, not a muddled post Temperance. And now I understand you better. And my feelings are nearly the same as yours, but then an empire with the values of the Enlightenment and indeed of the "Western" world. And yes also a kind of "old" Labour, in a kind of "samenhorigheidsgevoel" I just found out on my message for Meles meles that it means in English "a shared sense (feeling) of shared belonging (but attention the Italian fascists had also that "corporatism" and it ended in...).
But about taking part in politics and interest in politics and world politics, I am afraid most people aren't still interested, although at the end it directs our future. I take as direct examples for instance the grand daughter, university, psychology and all that, but no interest...the cleaning lady, once half a day in the week..in her thirties...two children...higher studies...no interest...and then they are victims in the polling station of the propaganda in the even serious television, papers and tabloids...while they never searched to construct an opinion for theirselves...
And then they are of course victims to for instance today, as the US is loosing in Syria against the Regime, Iran and Russia, the news about the treath of the "poisoning gasses" attacks (again!) in the only enclave left to the rebels and it seems the only? group supported by Saudi Arabia and perhaps fearing for their lives if they enter Idlib where there are "rebels" from other "factions". Again one asks if Assad in this stage of the war, where it is a matter of hours or days before that enclave too is overrun, would use chemical weapens to undergo the ire of the world, if he is sure that he is on some days near the victory? My wife saw the ugly pictures in the Belgian news and was also a victim to that kind of propaganda...
I have information from an expert on the French forum and on Jiglu there is also an expert on the Syrian Civil War.

Kind regards from Paul.

Temperance wrote:

MM wrote:

That said I still acknowledge the "Marseillaise" to be a cracking good tune and a rousing National Anthem ... despite it's rather anachronistic references to, "watering the furrows of our fields with the impure blood of our enemies".

Do the French still sing that bit? Makes our "confound their knavish tricks" (which I believe originally referred to those pesky Celts who would not stay properly subdued by the English) sound quite reasonable.

Temperance,

yes they still sing it. There was a discussion on our French forum about the changing of the French anthem due to some Frenchmen, especially for all that bombastic drivel, but everybody agreed including me, that the words were not important, but the "feeling" of the moment...
And for prove the Marseillaise by Mireille Mathieu, immediately followed by "my" Vera Lynn's: "Land of Hope and Glory". Is she now 101 years old?




And in the anthem, I hear now, comes also: "déchirent le sein de leur mère"...I let it to Meles meles to translate...

And for me it is also the best anthem, as Meles meles says, and the second best for me is the Internationale composed by a "Gantois" (someone from Ghent), perhaps equivalent to the Marseillaise. As I am also born in Ghent, by mentioning that, am I now also a jingoist "Gentenaar"?

Kind regards from Paul.

Meles meles,

I wanted to give the translation of "déchirent le sein de leur mère" in a version with translation for Temperance and now I see that that anthem don't contain "le sein de leur mère" as in the Mireille Mathieu vesion?...it gets complicated...
Is that "tabou" nowadays in the national anthem? but not the "bloody" "sillons"?
I will ask on the French forum...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIQSEq6tEVs&t=134s


Kind regards from Paul.

The conversation thus far reveals the problem with mythical countries presumed to have existed in the past (Dirk said "mystical" but I am presuming both to be essentially aspects to the same concept) - each individual person is at liberty to concoct any version of that land that appeals to them and in essence all that the recorded myth provides is a collection of "clues" from which any number of variations to the theme can be adduced or invented on the part of the fantasist.

This is of course wherein lies the danger of then investing belief in any myth as factual - an individual is more likely to stubbornly defend the precepts they feel that they themselves have formulated in the construction of their personal version of the myth. This guarantees a few things that make such fantasy eminently exploitable by less well-intentioned people who may wish to utilise the myth to prosecute an agenda of their own, benignly sometimes but much more often something rather more sinister in character. One guarantee obduracy confers is longevity - there is a good chance the individual will cling to their fantasy for a long time, long enough even in the case of some well constructed and well defended fantasies to "pass it on" through generations. The action of defending a fantasy against nay-sayers in the long term will also render the fantasist more inclined to accept apparent confirmation and validation of their fantasy from any and every source which might appear to offer this. This means, in a somewhat counter-intuitive manner, that the longer the fantasy persists and the more effort is made in defending its supporting precepts and solidifying its apparent sheen of reality, the more vulnerable it is in fact to exploitation.

William Blake is a poor choice actually if one is looking for good examples of such faith in historical fantasy concerning a country's origin or identity. As was said above he tended towards the obscure in his exclamations concerning these matters, as he did in all other respects too, and therefore his recorded words are amenable to interpretation in so many different and self-contradictory ways that they are less than worthless as validation of anyone else's particular fantasy - not that this stops people from trying of course, though using Blake in that manner smacks of desperation and those who have invested in sturdier myths quite rightly don't touch his material at all.

However the other example above, of Parry withdrawing permission to use his music for a jingoistic rally during the First World War, is much more pertinent to the study of how and why origin myth is formulated with regard to so-called "national" identity, and how this relates to the individual. There is something instinctively odious and objectionable when someone else is actually seen to overtly commandeer something oneself has concocted in pursuit of whatever myth in which one has invested to blatantly employ it in pursuit of establishing another myth entirely. In other words the hijacking of one person's mythical belief in order to pursue another, although it happens all the time, is incredibly offensive to the individual if they happen to perceive it in operation. Fair play to Parry if, during a time of great vulnerability and widely felt atmosphere of material threat to life, a time when people are habitually more inclined to sacrifice much - including their personal myths - for the common "good", he still had the strength of conviction in his own notion of which mythical "England" he had assumed Blake's poem to address to quite flatly refuse permission for his work to be presented in the prosecution of any variation of that myth for public consumption.

Of course this does not mean that Parry's myth was closer to reality than the one being nationally promulgated at the time, nor indeed vice versa, both were still myth after all. But what Parry's action demonstrated, and indeed the attempt to hijack his effort in the cause of a myth which offended him, is that myth trumps history every time when it comes to appeal to sentiment and in particular the strong sentiment required to treat the myth as being of more significance than reality itself, and this fact is not lost on those who invest in such myth either. The wonder in the case of this kind of myth - or maybe in fact testament to our innate compulsion to be social - is that we still entertain quite limited varieties of national origin fantasy which we use to construct an equally dubious notion of national identity.

Whatever about "Jerusalem" lyrically, which at least has the virtue of remaining obviously vague no matter who tries to appropriate it (I'm with LiR in seeing it as a beautiful paean to lost rustic innocence and pagan simplicity - itself a myth - though I am fully aware that Blake himself might have admitted it was all down to eating toasted cheese before bedtime), this brand of vagueness is actually unavoidable with even the most simplistic nationalistic songs. For example when Parker and Charles' song insists "there'll always be an England" the audience may all completely agree with the sentiment while privately entertaining different notions of what in fact is being proclaimed as immortal, but when they come to express these notions the variety they exhibit is remarkably limited in scope and the notion that it will exist forever, whatever "it" might be, is unanimously adopted anyway.

This is often interpreted as proof therefore that the myth must have a great deal of truth in it. I believe however it is simply evidence of generations of successful hijacking of individuals' imaginations for a common "good" which has meant that the present available range of myth, for better or worse in the long run, has been limited so that it is amenable to social adoption, and by the same token therefore of course social manipulation. And as we are seeing in recent times where the hijackers are acting with an arrogant disregard of the need for subtlety or subterfuge (in the apparent belief that this bolsters the validity of their right to behave this way) this manipulation is not always a good thing at all.

I would personally prefer a song "there never was an England", one which openly admits that "England" has only ever been a concoction of fanciful myths over the centuries, but that whatever it therefore really is as a result is worth investing in anyway. The same is true for any country actually. But it doesn't lend itself to catchy national anthems ...

PaulRyckier wrote:

I wanted to give the translation of "déchirent le sein de leur mère" in a version with translation for Temperance and now I see that that anthem don't contain "le sein de leur mère" as in the Mireille Mathieu vesion?...it gets complicated...
Is that "tabou" nowadays in the national anthem? but not the "bloody" "sillons"?

It's one of the later and more obscure verses and so rarely gets sung these days. I only know the words to the first verse as that's usually the only one sung, eg on Armistice Day or VE Day.

Anyway here's that verse in full:

Français, en guerriers magnanimes,
Portez ou retenez vos coups!
Épargnez ces tristes victimes,
À regret s'armant contre nous. (bis)
Mais ces despotes sanguinaires,
Mais ces complices de Bouillé,
Tous ces tigres qui, sans pitié,
Déchirent le sein de leur mère!
 
Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors,
Bear or hold back your blows!
Spare those sorry victims,
For regretfully arming against us. (repeat)
But these bloodthirsty despots,
These accomplices of Bouillé, (the hated, treacherous royalist general, the Marquis de Bouillé)
All these tigers who mercilessly
Tear apart their mother's breast!


Incidentally, although it is no surprise at all, but at the same time that Vera Lynn was singing "They'll always be an England" (1939) almost exactly the same general sentiments were being expressed by Maurice Chevalier in "Paris sera toujours Paris" (Paris will always be Paris) which also first appeared shortly after the declaration of war:



The words reflect the turmoil of blackout precautions, sandbags everywhere, rationing and life in shelters etc. and hark back to a pastiche of all things typically (but equally mythically) "Parisian". In translation the words of the first verse are (roughly):

Despite all this nailing and taking precautions,
Like taping up our windows,
Painting our shop fronts blue,
And the wheels of our cars too.
Emptying our museums of paintings,
Turning the Champs Elysees upside down,
Smothering with ugly mud
All the beauty of our statues.
Veiling the street lamps at night,
Plunging the City of Light into darkness.

Paris will always be Paris,
The most beautiful city in the world.
For all the deep darkness around
Her sparkle cannot be dulled.
Paris will always be Paris.
The more you subdue her lights,
The more you see her courage shine,
The more you see her wit sparkle,
Paris will always be Paris!

..... And I seem to remember that there was also in about 1943 a popular German song with the refrain "Berlin wird immer Berlin sein" (Berlin will always be Berlin).

Unlike Vera & Co the Germans had modestly placed a thousand year time limit on their reich

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Oh dear!  This lowbrow lady seems to have got the wrong end of the stick...I always took the words of Blake's Jerusalem literally - as trying to save something of the English countryside as it was being built over at a rapid rate (even worse nowadays, that's a bit close to home with me as a couple of large housing estates have been built on green fields a little further up the road where I live - well the second is still in being constructed).  There's always Flanders and Swann's *Song of Patriotic Prejudice - which for anyone whose first language was not English was meant to be funny.  ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdY1Y5XNJBY



* Back when I was a college girl some Irish girls were singing a lot of Irish rebel songs so I sang this, just as a hoot really, and one lass said to me (my real life name is Irish sounding - blame my paternal grandfather) "I don't know how you can sing that with a name like ________".  Some folk have a sense of humour bypass I guess.

Lady, I saw that in your link the "h" was omitted and with the "h" I found this:




I have already some reasonable grasp of understanding English, but with this rapid conversation I lost from time to time something.

"* Back when I was a college girl some Irish girls were singing a lot of Irish rebel songs so I sang this, just as a hoot really, and one lass said to me (my real life name is Irish sounding - blame my paternal grandfather) "I don't know how you can sing that with a name like ________".  Some folk have a sense of humour bypass I guess."

Yes it is there that the "nationalisms" start. The feeling of "we" and "them". And yes as a reaction on jingoism I would propably done the same as you, as I was in my time always a criticus and opposed to all kind of propaganda from whatever source where people were lurred into. I guess in a dictatorship I would be put in jail. Our I would go "underground" to do my thing. I saw the last time some three documentaries about Putin's Russia.

Kind regards from Paul.

Meles meles wrote:

PaulRyckier wrote:

I wanted to give the translation of "déchirent le sein de leur mère" in a version with translation for Temperance and now I see that that anthem don't contain "le sein de leur mère" as in the Mireille Mathieu vesion?...it gets complicated...
Is that "tabou" nowadays in the national anthem? but not the "bloody" "sillons"?

It's one of the later and more obscure verses and so rarely gets sung these days. I only know the words to the first verse as that's usually the only one sung, eg on Armistice Day or VE Day.

Anyway here's that verse in full:

Français, en guerriers magnanimes,
Portez ou retenez vos coups!
Épargnez ces tristes victimes,
À regret s'armant contre nous. (bis)
Mais ces despotes sanguinaires,
Mais ces complices de Bouillé,
Tous ces tigres qui, sans pitié,
Déchirent le sein de leur mère!
 
Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors,
Bear or hold back your blows!
Spare those sorry victims,
For regretfully arming against us. (repeat)
But these bloodthirsty despots,
These accomplices of Bouillé, (the hated, treacherous royalist general, the Marquis de Bouillé)
All these tigers who mercilessly
Tear apart their mother's breast!


Incidentally, although it is no surprise at all, but at the same time that Vera Lynn was singing "They'll always be an England" (1939) almost exactly the same general sentiments were being expressed by Maurice Chevalier in "Paris sera toujours Paris" (Paris will always be Paris) which also first appeared shortly after the declaration of war:



The words reflect the turmoil of blackout precautions, sandbags everywhere, rationing and life in shelters etc. and hark back to a pastiche of all things typically (but equally mythically) "Parisian". In translation the words of the first verse are (roughly):

Despite all this nailing and taking precautions,
Like taping up our windows,
Painting our shop fronts blue,
And the wheels of our cars too.
Emptying our museums of paintings,
Turning the Champs Elysees upside down,
Smothering with ugly mud
All the beauty of our statues.
Veiling the street lamps at night,
Plunging the City of Light into darkness.

Paris will always be Paris,
The most beautiful city in the world.
For all the deep darkness around
Her sparkle cannot be dulled.
Paris will always be Paris.
The more you subdue her lights,
The more you see her courage shine,
The more you see her wit sparkle,
Paris will always be Paris!

..... And I seem to remember that there was also in about 1943 a popular German song with the refrain "Berlin wird immer Berlin sein" (Berlin will always be Berlin).

 
Yes Meles meles I think you are right, when you said that the obscure verses of Bourré aren't included anymore in the modern version. And indeed the Mireille Mathieu version was I suppose an old version (as I see it in black and white and with a young Mireille)
And as you mentioned Maurice Chevalier, he was still popular overhere after the war, together with Charles Trenet: "La Mer" and also Luis Mariano: La belle de Cadix. I still remember it all from my childhood.



And can it be that you German song was "Berlin bleibt immer Berlin"




Kind regards from Paul.

That's the one Paul, "Berlin bleibt doch Berlin" (Berlin is still Berlin). I had said it was popular in about 1943 only because it featured in some old film footage I'd seen of life under the Third Reich, where it was being sung, in a much more boisterous manner than your version, as the morale-boosting finale of a Vaudeville performance in a Berlin theatre sometime towards the end of the war. This was when Berlin was subject to almost 24hour bombing and so the song was not just evoking wistful memories of the city, but blatantly imploring the audience to ignore the devastated bombed-out reality.

But I think the song itself might date from a little earlier than 1943. It was written by Bruno Balz who, being homosexual, had been imprisioned by the Gestapo in 1941 ... but the composer Michael Jary managed to convince Goebbels that Balz had a talent for writing popular songs and so could be useful in support of the war effort. Apparently within just a day after his release from prison, Balz had already knocked out two of his greatest hits, "Davon geht die Welt nicht unter" and "Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh'n" ... clearly there's nothing like the threat of a concentration camp to get ones creative muse going.

As an English person born a few years after the end of World War II, I remember Maurice Chevalier as being in the film Gigi based on the Colette novel singing "Thank heaven for little girls" and a duet "Ah yes, I remember it well".  I never actually saw the film but 1958 being before the days of 24 hour TV people still listened to the radio considerably (they did in our house anyway) and the songs from that musical received a good airing.  In the 1980s the BBC produced a drama based on the life of Margaret Kelly ("Bluebell") who founded the Bluebell Girls dancing group and the character of Maurice Chevalier played by an English actor, Peter Reeves, featured in two episodes of the series.

I am currently spending less time on YouTube (as I am now fit to do typing and to do household - though there is still more of the latter to catch up with than I can tick "done").  However the memory lingers on and I recall some illuminati videos saying that the sign made by M. Chevalier in the still of the YouTube clip - which I always thought was the A-Okay sign - is a representation of 666 and thereby paying homage to the evil one.  I wondered why anyone would think thus.  In British Sign Language an "O" made with the finger and thumb of the dominant hand means zero.

None of this has much to do with mythical, mystical England but at one time I was taken along to some Irish dance halls (albeit in the UK - for the Irish diaspora I guess).  Somebody looked at me askance because I didn't sing "Soldiers are we who pledge to fight for Ireland" (Irish national anthem?  Certainly an Irish patriotic song).  Well I didn't know the words though my friend whose Irish ancestry was less far back than mine could sing it in Erse (is that the right word, Irish Gaelic is what I mean).  I wouldn't have sung it anyway.  I think I've said elsewhere on the board that although I have a spot spot for St Paddy (albeit nordmann says said saint is not real) at school I stayed silent whenever "Hail glorious St Patrick dear saint of our isle"....etc was sung as my island was Britain not Ireland.  Not knocking the Irish, if I did I'd be knocking a sizeable chunk of my ancestry but I was not born there.

I was into my third year at school belting out "Vainglorious St Patrick!" before someone pointed out the error of my ways. I still prefer my version.

By the way I never said he didn't exist - simply that he was one of many Saint Paddies knocking about, some of whom were even real. But mention of the man is of course extremely relevant on this thread - him being a leading actor in one of the most intricate and fiercely prosecuted myths as fact which is the romantic notion of "Ireland" and being "Irish". If the English suffer from a kaleidoscopic sense of identity thanks to the fractured nature of their origin myth the Irish suffer from the opposite, a myth cemented together with such ferocious begrudgery and passion that even to pick at one corner of it in certain company could lead to serious injury being inflicted on one. You were wise not to be born there, and not to join in any rendition of that awful song - in fact back in our day even singing Amhrán na bhFiann in English might have got you murdered in that green and peasant land.

Times have changed, of course. I believe Justin Bieber had a go at doing it as part of his set when he played Dublin a while back (it was hard to know as he was obviously winging it from a phonetically scripted idiot card and it sounded like Gandhi having an argument with an epileptic cat). Some joker in the crowd requested he give a rendition of "The Sash Me Father Wore" as an encore, and then another ordered him to "Welease Bwian". Bieber hadn't a clue ....

Meles meles wrote:

That's the one Paul, "Berlin bleibt doch Berlin" (Berlin is still Berlin). I had said it was popular in about 1943 only because it featured in some old film footage I'd seen of life under the Third Reich, where it was being sung, in a much more boisterous manner than your version, as the morale-boosting finale of a Vaudeville performance in a Berlin theatre sometime towards the end of the war. This was when Berlin was subject to almost 24hour bombing and so the song was not just evoking wistful memories of the city, but blatantly imploring the audience to ignore the devastated bombed-out reality.

But I think the song itself might date from a little earlier than 1943. It was written by Bruno Balz who, being homosexual, had been imprisioned by the Gestapo in 1941 ... but the composer Michael Jary managed to convince Goebbels that Balz had a talent for writing popular songs and so could be useful in support of the war effort. Apparently within just a day after his release from prison, Balz had already knocked out two of his greatest hits, "Davon geht die Welt nicht unter" and "Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh'n" ... clearly there's nothing like the threat of a concentration camp to get ones creative muse going.

Meles meles,

thank you very much for the history and circumstances of the song and the author.
Sorry for not replying this evening, just back from visit outdoors and apologies to LiR and nordmann, to whom I also wanted to reply...

Kind regards to all.

Well firstly apologies to nordmann for misunderstanding his statement as to the historical accuracy or not of St Patrick.

Reading above about Bruno Balz it seems he wasn't stupid.

Trying to get back on topic I followed an English Literature course more years ago than I can remember and Thomas Hardy was one of the authors referenced.  I seem to recall that Hardy wrote about a rural England or a concept of rural England that was already passing if it had not in fact already passed in his lifetime.  I haven't read all of Mr Hardy's novels or short stories or poems for that matter.  The "Ruined Maid" (where the "ruined" as in not sexually pure maid was better off financially than the one who was not ruined) was quite funny I remember.  I have liked such of his works as I have read so I was disappointed when the lecturer we had said that in reality Hardy could be a bit of a cold fish - ate his meals apart from his wife, that sort of thing.

I'm not going to link them because I don't feel like giving the people who made them "views" but there are YouTube videos about Stone Henge being fake (some Yank bloke got the wrong idea about the restoration of Stone Henge in the 20th century and appeared to believe it was built then) and also about the Egyptian pyramids being built by the French 200 years ago - someone said well what about writers of antiquity mentioning said Pyramids but as I learned the hard way it's well nigh impossible to argue with a conspiracy theorist.

Is Atlantis a mythical place or was it based on something real.

Lady,

"Is Atlantis a mythical place or was it based on something real."
I mentioned already to Dirk:
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1253-mysterious-monuments

The Doggersbank, the Atlantis meant by the Greeks? Further than the "zuilen van Hercules" (the nowadays Gibraltar?)...
And I found now as it was in the news:
https://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/2018/04/07/searching-for-ancient-settlements-at-the-bottom-of-the-north-sea.html
From the link:
International Collaboration to Pinpoint Stone Age Settlements in Doggerland
A two-year marine expedition to pinpoint the location of a prehistoric settlement in the southern North Sea will be officially launched next Tuesday (10th April).  Teams from the University of Bradford, Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) and Ghent University will be working together to map and survey an area of the North Sea known as Brown Bank.  This area may have been the site of a substantial Stone Age settlement, prior to the land becoming inundated as sea levels rose at the end of the last Ice Age.

And not the Royal Navy but:

Help from the Belgian Navy
The project’s first phase will involve teams from the UK and Belgium surveying the target area with the assistance of the Belgian research vessel RV Belgica.   This fifty-metre-long vessel will be home to the researchers whilst they build up a detailed map of the physical features of the seafloor.  This survey will help them identify promising areas for further examination in part two of the project.
In the second phase, the team will extract sediment cores from these targets and analyse them to determine the environment of the landscape underlying the Brown Bank and to understand its potential for human settlement prior to its flooding.
Am I a bit jingoist? A one liner of the past of some seventy years ago: "In what a small country can be great"

Hope that Ferval checks from time to time as she is an archaeologist on land, but you see even in the sea there is archaeology.

Kind regards from Paul.

I have the tooth of a woolly mammoth from Doggerland. I bought it from a fisherman at Lowestoft who had just dredged it up in his nets. It's in a box along with a load of other fossils (mostly much older Mesozoic stuff from when I regularly collected along the south coast and from quarries in southern England). I'll see if I can dig it out and post a picture.

I was on the Belgica when she was in Kinsale a good few years ago - a great ship. She was being used along with her Irish equivalent the Lough Beltra to measure underwater tsunamis generated along the Gollum canal network if I recall, which was something I had never heard of before and with a friend who was studying maritime geology was invited to review the data on board (amazing what doors a few friendly Guinnesses can open). Passed up an invitation to travel with her to Fishguard as I'd have to make my own way back via Holyhead and I was afraid I wouldn't have the time. Stupid me.

You can track her online - I see she's currently just off Yarmouth in the UK.

Meles meles wrote:

I have the tooth of a woolly mammoth from Doggerland. I bought it from a fisherman at Lowestoft who had just dredged it up in his nets. It's in a box along with a load of other fossils (mostly much older Mesozoic stuff from when I regularly collected along the south coast and from quarries in southern England). I'll see if I can dig it out and post a picture.

Yes, here in Ostend the fishermen have all kind of dodgy things in their nets too and among others the more worthful historical artifacts and human and animal rests.
Perhaps you can make a kind of museum of your artifacts for the interest of the guests of your B&B, Meles meles?

Kind regards from Paul.

nordmann wrote:

I was on the Belgica when she was in Kinsale a good few years ago - a great ship. She was being used along with her Irish equivalent the Lough Beltra to measure underwater tsunamis generated along the Gollum canal network if I recall, which was something I had never heard of before and with a friend who was studying maritime geology was invited to review the data on board (amazing what doors a few friendly Guinnesses can open). Passed up an invitation to travel with her to Fishguard as I'd have to make my own way back via Holyhead and I was afraid I wouldn't have the time. Stupid me.

You can track her online - I see she's currently just off Yarmouth in the UK.

 
Thank you very much for the link, nordmann. It is an interesting one.
And what you were all up to in your long life...
You don't believe it...pure coincidence...this afternoon in a "café" near Zeebruges"...we...drinking as usual a "café" and eating a "waffle?" with butter and sugar...while there was not place enough asking to a couple if we couldn't sit at their table of four...it seemed as we after a while started talk, to be mother and son...mother 86 and looking very well for her age...and while talking she said that her grandson had a doctorat and was working at the here mentioned VLIZ...I promised to check...
http://www.vliz.be/nl/staf
http://www.vliz.be/nl/imis?persid=18420


Kind regards from Paul.